Kids wait outside Carl G. Lauro School

 Nicole Brazier
nbrazier@abc6.com
@NicoleBrazierTV

PROVIDENCE – The playground outside the Carl G. Laurel school is filled with kids in the morning. It’s where they wait for the school doors to open just before 9 am. But with frigid temperatures all last week, parents are concerned that their kids are being left out in the cold.

“What I see every single morning is freezing kids outside, some of them without coats, some of them with jackets but, it’s freezing, this morning it was 16 degrees and all the kids were outside playing,” said concerned mom Elizabeth Toro.

The Providence School Department says it’s up to the principal of each school to decide when to let kids wait for class indoors.

Until then, they try to promote as much outdoor play time as possible.

“We do have staffed playgrounds, we have teachers out on the playground, and we like to let kids get some run–around–time and fresh air playtime and I think that vast majority of kids, particularly elementary age, want and need that,” said communications director Christine O’Reilly.

The school department says the “Lauro students will begin waiting inside on Monday.

Not soon enough for parents, who say sometimes their kids wait outside for more than half an hour when the busses arrive at the school early.

“They’re getting sick. And some of the kids they don’t come with coats they come with sweaters,” said concerned mom Anna Rodriguez.

One of the parents reached out to the school principal, who offered to bring her son into the school office early, as some other students do.

(c) WLNE-TV 2014